480 - Punta Jesus Maria
Backpackers annoy the shiitake mushroom out of me, but not for any justifiable reason. It’s completely illogical, ridiculously selfish, and hardly worth sharing.
I feel ashamed to even be making this bold, unjustified claim. You wouldn’t believe that I’m currently reading a book title “The Book of Joy: Lasting Happiness in a Changing World.” In theory, I should be chill as a chipmunk towards these other tourist specimens. But today that wasn’t the case- I was bitter as a rotten lime.
I think it’s the notion that when you’re living on the road in a van, you spend weeks going through rural areas where tourists simply don’t exist. You get pulled into the foreign, surreal landscape, and an inkling of you becomes part of the madness. Eventually, your old life ceases to exist.
Then all of a sudden you show up to a place where there’s backpackers everywhere, and the illusion is shattered. I’m forced to remember that there is a first world society somewhere out there, somewhere I grew up in, and all these idiot backpackers are essentially me. Tourists.
I should also mention that today also marks the official end of our journey south, and I’m feeling especially moody because I didn’t want to turn around. But we were out of money. All of my saving, gone. And yes, I’m homesick as hell, but also I’m addicted to this travel photography life and I know I’m going to have to slow it down for a few months to work once I get back. (To save for another trip, obviously.)
I guess that’s the way of the road. You gotta go through the shit to make the good times better. Or something like that.
Either way, we hit the backpacker jackpot today. Punta Jesus Maria was the name of the game, a beach on Ometepe Island in Nicaragua. The landscape features a long, diminishing sand bar with a volcano backdrop.
It’s pretty neat because you can walk all the way to the end of the sand bar, and you’ll see water ¾ of the way around you. It almost feels the lake is swallowing you whole.
But when sunset came around, the backpackers came out to play. This place had to be listed on some viral blog somewhere, because it was just ridiculous how many people were there. We’ve been traveling Mexico/Central America for 6 months now, and it was like someone just pushed a tourist button and they all showed up here.
But like I said, I can’t logically be mad. These people deserve to be here as much as I do, even if they are in the way of every single possible shot, chain smoking cigarettes like wannabe models.
I looked down. My favorite thing about the ground here was the black sand, which was occasionally speckled with vibrant plants from the island. It was like a black canvas speckled with color splotches. This could be something…
The first scene I especially enjoyed was of a yellow leaf. The water kept washing up and getting close to it, and eventually touched it ever so gently:
“Yin/Zang”
Taken on Sony a7rIII + Zeiss 24-70mm f/4
[ISO 125 ~ 55mm ~ f/4 ~ 1/200s]
(Want a Print? Get one here.)
I edited that shot to be like yin/yang, to represent how calm I felt by the millions of fucking tourists everywhere. Haha, but in all seriousness, it was a fun scene to capture. The timing on that was incredibly hard, because most waves either completely demolished the leaf or completely missed it. I had to wait for one that brushed it perfectly.
With all seascape shots, no matter how big, timing of the waves always pays off if you wait long enough. Even if you’re not sure what you’re looking for, believe me when I say something interesting will happen if you stare at the same wave pattern long enough.
My next shot was a step up from that, with a slightly bigger plant. A branch with a green leaf this time:
“Hint of Lake”
Taken on Sony a7rIII + Zeiss 24-70mm f/4
[ISO 200 ~ 24mm ~ f/4 ~ 1/320s]
(Want a Print? Get one here.)
One of my favorite tricks to find a composition when you’re stuck is to simply look for one color in ANY situation that stands out from the others, then isolate it somehow. The eye is drawn towards contrast.
There was actually another red planted leaf that I saw on the sand on the way back, and I didn’t stop for it. I regret that wholeheartedly. Would have made a great three series with these other two shots…
Oh well. Live and learn.
Alright folks, that’s the two images I got for this adventure. Nice intimate portfolio pieces. On my next shoot, I eat spinach at a waterfall in the middle of nowhere. Oh, and if you’re a backpacker, go fuck yourself ;)
I’m on a mission to explore as much as humanely possible.
Want to see my progress? Check out the Adventure Map.
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